lvi Introduction.

again at length and in detail. The Upper House said that honor required the
payment of this salary, and added that "A Private Gentleman, who should refuse
to allow an old Servant a Claim founded as M^r Ross', would have very little
Reason to expect the World should applaud him for his Prudence". It was
indeed ludicrous, the upper chamber said, to rail the matter of the salary a
"struggle for liberty". Reference was then made to the demand of the Lower
House for a support for a Provincial Agent in London to be appointed by it. The
Upper House declared, that as the chance was desperate for the passage at this
session of a Journal of Accounts, it was now willing, however, to pass the
separate Lower House bill, which it had previously rejected, carrying an ap-
propriation for the expenses of the late war. The message closed with the
denial that the Clerk of the Council should be paid out of such funds set aside
by law "for support of government" as the tobacco export duty, which would
be contrary not only to usage but to the laws of the Province. He should be
paid, as clerks before him have been, by the Journal of Accounts (pp. 97-110).
The Assembly adjourned without further mention of the Journal. It may be
added, however, that a Journal of Accounts was passed in the year 1766 after
a lapse of ten years.

PROVINCIAL AGENT IN GREAT BRITAIN

It was inevitable that the question of provision for the appointment and
support of a Provincial Agent in Great Britain to represent the people of
Maryland before the Crown would come up again at the November-December,
1765, session, as it had at every session for so many years. The agitation about
the Stamp Act and the actual employment of a special agent, Charles Garth, to
represent Maryland in London in presenting remonstrances to King and Parlia-
ment asking repeal of this act, added strength to the popular demand that there
be resident in London a Provincial Agent to represent the people before the
Crown in matters involving disputes between them and the Lord Proprietary,
or, as the Lower House expressed it, to resist the pretensions of the Lord Pro-
prietary. These demands for a support for an Agent have been discussed in the
introductions to the preceding volumes of the Archives dealing with Assembly
affairs, and most recently in Volume LVIII (pp. xlvi-xlviii).

On November 7, 1765, on the motion of Edward Tilghman, the Lower
House ordered a committee of three, consisting of Tilghman, Murdock, and
Lloyd to prepare a bill for the support of a Provincial Agent (p. 142). A bill
imposing an export duty of fourpence on every hogshead of tobacco which
left the Province, to be used for the support of such an agent, was brought
in and passed on December 13, and sent to the Upper House (pp. 222, 232).
Here it was rejected and returned with a message to the lower chamber (pp.
90-93, 235). As the demand for a representative in London was universal
among all classes, and as Governor Sharpe and the Upper House were obliged
to oppose it because of direct orders from the Proprietary, the upper chamber in
objecting to it was forced to weave a web of legalistic sophistries in defense
of its position. In its message it declared that the "members of the Upper
House .... [are] a distinct Order .... each [house] has a Power to